Quote Originally Posted by Weetzlo View Post
For me personally? Even though Dark Knights have been in FF since FF3, arguably 2, they were so often just "Warrior, but can cast spells." Even the icon of the job Cecil had just one unique ability "Spend 1/8 of your HP to use what totally looks like Flood of Shadow." The job really got it's flavor and identity from FF11 for my money and 14 is well aware of this. The effects are obviously different because it's a different game, but Stalwart Soul, Souleater, Hard Slash, Spinning Slash, and Power Slash are all DRK moves from 11. It's signature ability that it could only use once every hour was Blood Weapon and in that game it drained enemy HP with attacks, plus it was the only job to learn the spell "Drain" levels 2 and 3, one of the things it could do exclusively was use "Dread Spikes" which did a small drain attack against anyone that hit you while it was up so that's how I see DRK in my mind. HAVING SAID THAT, DRK wasn't even kind of a tank in 11, it was closer to 2.X DRG in 14 terms, where it wore some tank armor but it was a damage dealer for sure so it can't be an apples:apples comparison. I will say that I'm a proponent of the barrier idea because the first DRK in the 14 world was a PLD who cast away his shield because of the emblem, but PLDs know how to use magic so mirroring a spell like divine veil makes total perfect sense to me.
I never played 11 so this is actually very helpful insight. It's also worth pointing out that "Blood Weapons" throughout FF history is a weapon which drains life from enemies, so I understand the idea of locking healing behind this single skill, but even if that were to happen it would hardly make DRK a drain tank for the same reason that PLD healing doesn't, it's locked behind offensive abilities (turn MP into DPS) so it's not used as a response to damage. Helpful insights to the origin of this thought, though!